It is well known that when human skin rests against an uneven surface, the pattern of that uneven surface is impressed into the human skin. This is quite noticeable, for example, when a person sits on grass. It is only a matter of time until blood circulation returns to the vessels in the skin tissue and the skin resumes its natural pattern, thus eliminating the impression.
As the human body ages, however, it takes longer for the body to remove skin impressions. Normally, this presents no problem because a person embarrassed about an impression may simply wear clothing over the impression. But when the impression occurs on the face, covering it with clothing is not an option.
The problem of facial impressions is most acute in senior women and frequently arises as a result of sleeping on a pillow, pillowcase or other surface which is capable of creasing. The crease in the pillow or pillowcase surface is transferred into a wrinkle in the human face. For most people, a shower is sufficient to remove the wrinkle from the face, but this is not so among the middle-aged. In some instances, the wrinkle may survive the shower and present a facial wrinkle that the bearer is embarrassed to have.
As a result, several prior art devices have been developed to allow a middle-aged person to sleep comfortably in a manner which does not subject the face to creases. One such prior art device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,312,987 for a Small Wrinkle Free Face Pillow, issued to William M. Emery on August 11, 1967. The patent to Emery discloses a small inflatable pillow having an inflatable bladder covered by a sheet of foam to provide a feeling of softness over the exterior of the pillow. The device of the Emery patent, however, suffers from several drawbacks. First, the Emery pillowcase cannot be used without the Emery pillow. Second, since the pillow supports only the head, jaw and cheek of a user, the number of positions that a user may sleep in is limited. Third, a person requiring a soft down-filled or fibre-filled pillow cannot use the device of Emery because it is too structured and too firm.
Other prior art pillow devices include a normal bed pillow having a central depression for accommodating the back of a human head. The design strategy is to accommodate the back of the head so that the face does not come in contact with a surface or, to the extent it does, the surface is merely tangential to the face and, therefore, very little pressure is applied to the face, minimizing the likelihood of a wrinkle.
All these prior art devices, however, suffer from deficiencies. For example, they all possess a solid pillow structure which essentially holds the head in a fixed or relatively fixed position. A disadvantage presented by such a structure is that it denies a person the opportunity to sleep in different positions. A second disadvantage is that if a person is traveling and desires to maintain a wrinkle free appearance, the person must necessarily lug around the bulky fixed position pillow.
Having discussed prior art "pillows" which are designed to provide wrinkle free sleep, attention is now drawn to "pillowcase" prior art. Although the prior art does not teach a wrinkle free pillowcase, the prior art includes pillowcases that have been developed to protect hairdos overnight without caps, nets, clips, or wraps. Satin has been used as the material in this type of pillowcase. Although satin may be a smooth material which protects hairdos, it is still capable of creasing and, therefore, producing wrinkles in the face of one who sleeps on it.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a wrinkle free pillowcase which when used with a specific sized bed pillow creates a wrinkle free surface.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a wrinkle free pillowcase which can be made of varying sizes to accommodate standard, queen and king size pillows common in the bedding industry, regardless of fiber content, be it down feathers, polyester fiber fill, foam rubber or a variation thereof, as long as the size of the pillow meets the industry specifications.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a wrinkle free pillowcase of a nylon spandex material which is stretched tautly across the surface of a pillow in such a manner as to create a smooth wrinkle free surface on the exterior of that pillow.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a velcro, zipper or other closure to securely hold the pillowcase of the present invention about a pillow.
The attainment of the foregoing and related objects, advantages and features of the invention should be more readily apparent to those skilled in the art, after review of the following best mode of carrying out the present invention, taken together with the drawings.